recommendation from the
Council, which shall act by a qualified majority, shall give a discharge
to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the
administrative budget. To this end, the Council and the European
Parliament in turn shall examine the account and the financial
statement referred to in Article 78d, the annual report by the Court of
Auditors together with the replies of the institutions under audit to the
observations of the Court of Auditors, and any relevant special reports
by the Court of Auditors.
2. Before giving a discharge to the Commission, or for any other
purpose in connection with the exercise of its powers over the
implementation of the administrative budget, the European Parliament
may ask to hear the Commission give evidence with regard to the
execution of expenditure or the operation of financial control systems.
The Commission shall submit any necessary information to the
European Parliament at the latter's request.
3. The Commission shall take all appropriate steps to act on the
observations in the decisions giving discharge on other observations
by the European Parliament relating to the execution of expenditure,
as well as on comments accompanying the recommendations on
discharge adopted by the Council.
At the request of the European Parliament or Council, the Commission
shall report on the measures taken in the light of these observations
and comments and in particular on the instructions given to the
departments which are responsible for the implementation of the
administrative budget. These reports shall also be forwarded to the
Court of Auditors."
18) Article 78h shall be replaced by the following:
"ARTICLE 78h
The Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission
and after consulting the European Parliament and obtaining the
opinion of the Court of Auditors, shall:
a) make Financial Regulations specifying in particular the procedure to
be adopted for establishing the implementing the administrative
budget and for presenting and auditing accounts;
b) determine the methods and procedure whereby the budget revenue
provided under the arrangements relating to the Communities' own
resources shall be made available to the Commission, and determine
the measures to be applied, if need be, to meet cash requirements;
c) lay down rules concerning the responsibility of financial controllers,
authorizing officers and accounting officers, and concerning
appropriate arrangeme